John Albert Kundla (born July 3, 1916 born in Star Junction, PA) is a former college and professional basketball coach.

After attending and playing baseketball for Minneapolis Central High School in Minneapolis (which closed in 1982), Kundla was a standout for the Minnesota Gophers basketball team in the late 1930s. Following graduation, he stayed on at the university as an assistant coach to Dave MacMillan. He would then move to the high school ranks as the head coach of DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis, MN. After two years there, the United States entered World War II and Kundla joined the Navy, where he was assigned to LST units in both the European and Pacific theaters. After the war, he was hired to coach the College of St. Thomas.

Following the Tommies' 1946-47 season, the infant Minneapolis Lakers would extend an offer to Kundla to coach the team, then playing in the National Basketball League. However, Kundla turned the offer down as he was not impressed with the professional ranks. Team representatives returned, and this time the offer had been upped to $6,000 (twice his St. Thomas salary) and Kundla took the job.

James Clifford "Jim" Pollard (July 9, 1922 – January 22, 1993) was an American professional basketball player.

In college, Pollard played for Stanford and was a key member of Stanford's 1942 national championship team (though due to illness, he did not play in the final game). During WWII he starred in Coast Guard teams from Alameda to Honolulu. Following the War, Pollard played for the San Diego Dons and the Oakland Bittners, making four trips to Denver for AAU playoffs. In the NBA, Pollard was considered one of the best forwards in the 1940s and 1950s, and was known for his leaping ability (Pollard would occasionally dunk from the free throw line during warmups) earning him the nickname "The Kangaroo Kid".

In 1952, players who had performed in the NBA since its inception (after the merging of the NBL and the BAA) selected Pollard as the best player of the period. Pollard teamed with George Mikan and Vern Mikkelsen for the Minneapolis Lakers, forming one of the best front courts in basketball history. The Lakers won six professional basketball titles: 1948 (NBL), 1949 (BAA), 1950 (NBA), 1952 (NBA), 1953 (NBA), 1954 (NBA).

Earl "Yogi" Strom (December 15, 1927 – July 10, 1994) was a professional basketball referee for 29 years in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and for three years in the American Basketball Association (ABA). Strom is credited as the greatest referee in the history of the NBA and was known for his flamboyant style and ability to control the game. Nicknamed "The Pied Piper", the assertive Strom made foul calls with his whistle by using a "tweet-pause-tweet-tweet" tune and pointing at the offending player. In addition to calling fouls with flair, he was known for ejecting players from games with style and he sometimes supported his rulings with physical force.

Over the course of his career, he officiated 2,400 professional basketball regular season games, 295 playoff games, 7 All-Star games, and 29 NBA and ABA Finals. For his extensive contributions to the game, Strom was posthumously elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995.

Arild Verner Agerskov "Vern" Mikkelsen (born October 21, 1928) is an American former professional basketball player. He was one of the NBA's first power forwards in the 1950s and was known for his tenacious defense.

Mikkelsen was born in Fresno, California and was raised in Askov, Minnesota in a town of primarily Danish-Americans. He entered Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota on a basketball scholarship at the age of 16. In his senior year at Hamline, Mikkelsen was voted an All-American. He would later receive a masters degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Mikkelsen played with George Mikan and Jim Pollard in the frontcourt of the Minneapolis Lakers. The Lakers won four NBA titles during Mikkelsen's career. Mikkelsen played in six NBA All-Star Games and was named to the All-NBA Second Team four times in his career.

Mikkelsen ended his career after ten seasons in the NBA in 1959, having played in 798 of a possible 800 games. He finished his career with 10,063 points scored and led the NBA in both personal fouls and disqualifications for three straight seasons. Mikkelsen still holds the league record for career disqualifications with 127.